What does DTK need?

[Rainrider22]

Sorry, I'm incredibly late responding to these...

So, this is quite different from my lived experience, and most of the people I know in my building are similarly happy to live downtown, and do not express concerns about safety or peace of mind -- and neither are my colleagues at work concerned about safety (our office is in the heart of DTK).

Could this be because we are somewhat isolated from the streets inside our access-controlled condo building? Is that the difference? I don't know where you live so can't tell whether that's a differentiator. But my fellow residents, by and large, happily walk, shop, bike and eat downtown without feeling unsafe.

Now, most of the new DTK residents are living in access-controlled buildings, whether condos or rental apartments, so if that is the difference, those residents might be less likely to encounter the issues that you do.

I have also worked downtown a number of years and my co-workers have had mixed feelings, but are generally indifferent to the situation because the don't walk the streets, they drive to work, drive to lunch, drive back to work, drive home. Most would certainly not consider living downtown though, even if they are fine working there.

I live in an old mixed use building, one of many that line King St. My building is access controlled, though it only has a handful of apartments and so obviously no concierge or security that modern condos may have. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, people still get in and all of the tenants get to bond in fear or anger over whatever situation just occurred... I can say for sure: None of them are happy about living in this location. At first I was upset my unit doesn't have a fire escape for some reason, but since my neighbour has had to barricade all of her windows after countless break-and-enter attempts, I'll take my chances jumping out the window... Oh, and a previous tenant was once burglarized for well over $10k.

Since I've also been looking for a car, I asked the previous occupant of my unit if she had issues with the parking space. Sure enough, her window had been smashed 3 times.

So anyways, it's confusing to me that this forum is so starkly in "nothing is wrong" camp. I'm willing to entertain that it's me who is out of touch, but considering my urbanist biases it just seems statistically impossible that nearly all of the people I've met in person share the same opinions as me (which I wouldn't have shared before moving here).

I suspect some of this might be due to interpretation. Walking around DTK you see people living in doorways, high on drugs, or having other issues. To you and I we might say, "I have no concerns for myself" others might say "I was nearly killed"...  Now dtkvictim didn't lay out explicit example, so I am exaggerating to make the point, but absolutely there are differences in our tolerance to issues we experience day to day on the street.

FWIW I agree with you Tom, although I also lived in a controlled access condo building virtually all of the people I knew in the building (including both  families and many seniors male and female), none had negative feelings about living downtown, and we all experienced plenty of issues even in our building, including a significant break-in and also fairly frequently homeless people sleeping in and occasionally pooping in our entryway. But nobody felt intolerably unsafe.

Further, we experienced more property damage and break-ins at our single family (albeit century--near downtown) home prior to moving to our condo.

As a baseline:

Seeing beggars and being asked for money doesn't make me feel unsafe. Seeing people piss on buildings (including, usually, my own doorway), doesn't make me feel unsafe. People talking to themselves or even shouting generally doesn't make me feel unsafe. The black man who stopped me and spent 10 minutes telling me how much better he thought white people and society is didn't make me feel unsafe, nor did the drunk man who just left a bar question his gender identity and needed some help (though these certainly made me uncomfortable not knowing how to handle them!).

However, the repeat fires outside of my building make me feel unsafe. Being assaulted (or attempted) makes me feel unsafe. People who get into my building trying to enter apartments makes me feel unsafe. Being touched (but not assaulted) countless times borders on feeling unsafe. The countless death threats (often while being followed), make me feel unsafe. Having things thrown at me (happened twice) make me feel unsafe.

It would take a while to lay out every specific example for you to "judge". But within a single week after my post (i.e. they weren't even factors in making my post) I had

1) A man entered our building after the building lock stuck during the first freeze, and tried to break into our apartment while I slept, and my spouse was up alone. I woke up to her shouting, the man running away. This made us feel unsafe, and comforting my spouse's subsequent breakdown and feelings of violation sure as hell reinforced that.

2) My spouse and I went for a walk after work as we do (or did) every single day. Walking through Water/Joseph, a man walking in our direction ~40 meters away shouts "DIE!". As we pick up our pace, he breaks out into a full sprint towards us and chases us all the way to Gaukel St before stopping. I don't know if I convey how frighting being chased in the dark by someone who shouted "DIE!" is, but I assure you that made us feel unsafe. Now my spouse won't go outside after dark, which basically means staying inside all winter.

3) The next day, since I'm now running after-dark errands alone, I go shopping on King St. On my way between shops, a man is attempting to smash in the glass door of a Cannabis shop and shouting death threats at the security guard holding the door shut from inside. After he gives up he heads down the street shouting at pedestrians. He gets to the KWFamous pop-up shop I was going to next, knocks over the planters outside, and then throws the pop-up shop's sign towards other pedestrians. Ultimately I looped around the block while he wandered away, but I definitely considered not shopping there that day. I'm quite sure the pedestrians on his side of the street felt unsafe, the security guard felt unsafe, and the parents on the way to skating who picked up their children and ran across the street felt unsafe.

I also won't share my female spouse's solo experiences without consulting her, but her collective situations seem to have been 10x worse than mine.

Now, with some more clarification on how I formed my opinions, are these examples simply a matter of interpretation? In your world, are these acceptable living conditions in your neighbourhood?

Thank you for sharing your intimate experience.  I would love it if you shared this with mayor and city counsel.   I am going to share it with my cousin who sits on the police service board and regional counsel as well.  We need more real personal stories like this that remove the bias and say it like it is.